UAH athletics director has a lot on his plate

Eric Schultz/Huntsville TimesUAH athletics director Jim Harris will be in Hoover on Thursday at the Gulf South Conference meetings

HUNTSVILLE, AL - Believe it or not, there is a slow period.

At least, there's supposed to be a slow period.

"From June 15th to July 30th," Jim Harris said, before chuckling, "that's not going to be the case this year."

No, the 2010 trend that has sent the University of Alabama in Huntsville athletics director more resumes than Monster.com will continue humming right along Thursday as he travels to Hoover to meet with his fellow Gulf South Conference ADs.

Foremost on the agenda is whether or not the six Arkansas-based schools in the GSC plan to pull up stakes and head for the geographically friendlier Lone Star Conference (the presidents will be in on the discussion Friday).

Harris will be helping juggle that issue while simultaneously trying to figure out who will be UAH's next hockey coach, a job vacated by Danton Cole earlier this week.

"Both (issues) are on the front burner," Harris said. "Nothing's on the back burner. We have to be prepared (for hockey) in October. We have to have people in place."Harris has been forced to make more moves than Kasparov of late. In the past six months, he's had to find a new men's and women's soccer coach, a new baseball coach and now, a hockey coach.

That's on top of the ongoing search for a new league for the hockey team and helping keep the current one the rest of Chargers teams play in from splintering.

"Each year brings different challenges," he said. "I've never dealt with a multitude of them like this.

"We've gone years without having any turnover on our staff. This just happens to be the year when it all seems to be happening at once. It's a unique challenge."

When it comes to the GSC and what might be a power play by the Arkansas schools to gain some concessions as it relates to football travel, Harris is a glass half-full kind of guy. His ultimate goal is to keep the current 14-team league together, and the fact that no document stating an imminent departure has been given to commissioner Nate Salant gives him hope.

"I think there's a 50-50 chance," Harris said, with the implication that he's on the left side of that half-and-half possibility being quite clear. "It may just be me, but I don't see anybody standing up (at the meetings) and saying 'We're gone.' "

For whatever reason, when the GSC ADs met a couple of weeks ago the subject of a potential defection didn't even come up, even though Harris said he'd gotten wind of the possibility weeks earlier.

That won't be the case in Hoover, where someone will have to fess up.

"On Thursday, we're going to have to see if we can resolve this," Harris said.And if a compromise or some other sort of solution can't be reached?

"Prior to the admission of the west schools we had a pretty good conference," Harris noted.

Beefing back up to 12 teams would be the optimum number, Harris said, with football-playing schools being a priority. One positive in that scenario could come from current GSC member West Florida. The Argos are in the middle of a 14-month study that might result in them adding football.

Should it come to soliciting teams to join the GSC, Harris said it would "behoove" non-football schools like UAH to "work together with the others" to bring other schools into the fold.

When it comes to searches, of course, Harris has plenty of experience.